In this instructional video, Simon Alagbe explains the two main categories of economic events that traders can use to inform Forex positions. He first revisits quantitative events—data releases such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and ISM Manufacturing PMI—that include forecast and previous figures, allowing traders to compare actual numbers against expectations and decide on buy or sell trades. He then introduces qualitative events, which lack concrete numbers and instead consist of central‑bank communications like rate statements, speeches, and meeting minutes (e.g., FOMC statements, ECB or RBA remarks). These require traders to interpret the tone and substance of the language to gauge monetary policy direction and anticipate market volatility. Simon highlights where to find these events (Forex Factory, Trading Economics, other news aggregators), stresses the importance of planning ahead using the economic calendar—even on weekends—and promises a follow‑up video that will detail how to trade qualitative events. The overall message is that both quantitative and qualitative data are essential tools for fundamental analysis, each demanding a different analytical approach.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to this special edition where we'll be digging deeper into the types of economic data that can be traded in the global financial market. In the previous edition, I was able to show to us how to analyze the Forex Factory website, how to get to understand if the data is asking us to take a buy trade or to take a sell trade. I was also able to share with us, um, the currency combinations in case we are a currency trader. Do we have to go with the quotes or do we have to go with the bids depending on the kind of data that has been released and we are planning to take a trade on? But in this edition, I will be showing to us the 2 types of data or the 2 types of economic events that that are made available on either The Forex Factory, Trading Economics, or any other news aggregator that we use in the financial market. And for us to have an insight into what I'm about to share, I might have to go to a previous day because today actually happened to be a work-free day, a Sunday. As you can see currently on this website, it shows today, October 2nd. And then today is a Sunday, so I'm actually making this video on a Sunday. That is another beautiful thing about this market. You can plan your day, you can plan your week even before the day or before the week finally arrives, so we can know what we will be looking forward to. Looking at this particular day, this day we have a particular type of economic event that will be released on this particular day. We have the CPI That's the Consumer Price Index. And in the case of the CPI, there are forecasts and previous. And in the case of ISM Manufacturing PMI, another type of economic event in this market, we also have forecasts and the previous. This type of events are called quantitative events. They are quantitative because they are data we can work with. Every single person who have access to this data can easily get to analyze the data, get to look at the quality of the data. Is the data very far away from what economists are expecting? Is the data depicting that the economy is doing fine, or is the data saying at this time the economy is not really doing very, very well? In case the economy is doing fine, we know the type of trade to take. So if you do not, I will encourage us to watch the a previous edition of this series where I talk about how to analyze quantitative data like this— the CPI, the ISM Manufacturing PMI, and the rest of it. These are the first type of economic events that we can trade in this market— quantitative, with numbers, measurable, very, very easy for each and every one of us to trade. The second series are the qualitative events. In this instance, we do not have data to work with. An example is the rate statement. Rate statement, like in this case, is one the Reserve Bank of Australia will be making available to explain the reason behind their decision to either increase interest rates or reduce interest rates. So this one do not give us a particular number we are going to compare and work with. We have to look at a series of statements, analyze those statements, get to understand what those statements is passing across to us. So when we do that, that is when we might be able to either decide to take a buy trade or we take a sell trade. Another example is when members of the central banks are also speaking. Speeches cannot be stereotyped. You can't tell if a particular speech, maybe before it is delivered, is going to follow a particular order that, oh, this person, like in the case of a member of the Federal Open Market Committee that will be speaking on this day, that, okay, this is the way Mester is going to arrange her speech. We will not know ahead of time. It is as at the time Mester is delivering the speech. We'll listen to the speech. We get to, um, understand what Mester is trying to pass across. Is Mester having a feeling that the economy is doing well? We'll get to pick that from the quality of the speech Mester is delivering. Or like in the case of the European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde also speaking on this particular day too, we will not also be able to put number or assign number to what the speech is going to look like. So in the cases where we have speeches, statements, and minutes, those ones are qualitative. We work with the quality of the information. That is contained in those speeches, in those minutes, and in those statements. They are, um, very interesting to trade, especially when they create volatility, like in the case of rate statements and the minutes. For instance, the FOMC statements, the FOMC minutes, and the likes of them, or the speeches by the head of the central banks— Lagarde, Powell, and the rest of them. Those ones too are very, very interesting to trade, but we need to understand what we'll be watching out for whenever, um, this kind of speeches or this kind of qualitative events are being made available in the market. Um, so this is where I'm going to wrap it up in this particular edition. So in the next edition, I will be sharing with us how to trade these qualitative events, what do we need to watch out for, and, uh, which type of trade are we expected to take, uh, depending on what those speeches are focused on. So I look forward to having you around next time around. Uh, subscribe and like this video because there will be a whole lot of qualitative content that will be coming out on this channel. So thank you for being a part of this video. I'm expecting us very, very soon. Thank you.
